Tangled
by Alaanysinwonderland
Summary: Sometimes, I believed she was made for me. Every tiny piece of her soul drove me crazy, happy. I always felt lightheaded in her arms. It was easy to dream about building a family with her. But that's all I could do. Dreaming. Because I already had a family waiting for me.


**Disclaimer: If I owned the HGs, I probably wouldn't be writing here. **

"I love you," she exhaled as I was collapsing on the mattress. She snuggled against me, resting her head on my flushed, sweating body. I pressed a light kiss on her temple while my fingers danced through her silky curls. Her long eyelashes fluttered close.

As my eyes hovered above her delicate features, I wondered if her beauty would ever cease to amaze me. I could have closed my eyes and drawn every little part of her body with extreme precision, still the only sight of the light freckles sprinkled on her small nose set off burning tickles in my stomach. Just like the first time we met.

I can still remember the speed at which my heart was pounding in my chest the second her perfect lips had grinned at me this day. Haymitch had promised to find me the perfect assistant, but she was so much more than I had expected. And if I had never believed in love at first sight, I couldn't deny the almost-unbearable desire that was building inside of me whenever she was around.

And I tried to fight those feelings. The best I could. But the fact that she was sitting just across my office didn't help me at all. Every little move she made was just pure torture.

That fight had lasted one full month.

It only took a few drinks and the strawberry scent of her hair to strike me down. And I had never been so blithe to lose a battle. Sometimes, I just wondered why I had even tried to fight in the first place.

This was where I needed to be. This was where I felt happy.

A low ringtone broke the sleepy silence. I slowly untangled myself from her body and stepped out of the bed. I grabbed the phone on the small glass table on my side where the picture of a black-haired woman _almost_ smiling at me was glowing in the dark. I pressed on the green button cell and slowly brought the phone to my ears.

"Hey."

"Are you still at work?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said absentmindedly while putting my boxers on.

"It's almost midnight, Gale!" She sounded mildly concerned. I usually made up home two hours earlier, but today was special.

"I know. I had a few articles to rank today," I answered almost mechanically. I had planned this excuse since early in the morning. "But I'm done now. I'll be back in ten minutes."

"Have you eaten yet?"

"Yeah," I said again as I slipped my legs in the pants lying next to Madge's dress. "I had a snack with Thom earlier, don't worry." By snack I meant beef filet mignon and red wine. And obviously, my best friend Thom didn't attend to this banquet. Though if he had, I wouldn't have noticed. Not with the plunging neckline of that red dress.

"Alright." She hung up.

I shoved my cell phone in my back pocket and opened the drawer to grab a new shirt. I knew Madge's smell overwhelmed the one on the floor.

I dressed the most silently possible to avoid waking her up, but when I turned around to grab my shoes, her blue eyes were wide open. And staring at me.

"You're leaving?" she asked me, though it sounded more like a reproach and less like a question. I could see the word _again _swimming in her sea-colored pupils. The golden bird on the necklace I got for her birthday was shining on her bare chest.

My fingers reached the back of my neck. "I have to. Katniss is-"But she cut me off with an awkward nod and rolled back in the white sheets. The soft skin of her back looked like satin under the moonbeams that filtered through the curtains of her room.

I sat on the wrinkled bed and sighed nervously while sliding my feet in my shoes. I knew she wanted me to stay. To spend the whole night with her for once. And I couldn't give her that. Not even today.

I climbed over the bed and pressed a kiss on her bare shoulder. "Happy Birthday, Madge," I whispered to her blond curls. She didn't move but I could feel the goose bumps forming on her skin. "See you tomorrow, right?"

I just wanted to hear her voice before going; it was my most favorite melody. But what I heard next felt more like nails scraping a chalkboard: "I can't. I have a date with Finnick."

My hand tensed in a fist above the sheets. "Oh." My jaw clenched. "I didn't know you were seeing each other."

I had seen Odair hitting on her more than once since he had been transferred here, but Madge had never been really interested. From what I could remember.

It was not the first time she was dating other men. And fortunately, her relationships were never serious or never lasting more than a month.

But her dates had always been Harvard-graduated rich dandies with this annoying 'I'm-so-better-than-you' aura. The type of guy her father would have approved. And Odair didn't fit in this category. At all.

"Well, we do." She lifted herself from the pillow and finally faced me. Her left arm was digging in the mattress to support her and the right one was circling the blanket on her chest. "He's really sweet."

With all my good will, I couldn't suppress that sarcastic laugh in my throat. "What exactly do you call _sweet_, Madge?" It was hard to talk between greeted teeth.

This blond Apollo was a lot of things: freaking attractive, that was yesterday news. Sometimes funny, when you got used to his annoying Australian accent. Not that stupid, I had to admit. He could lay down good articles in five minutes. That was only when he wasn't telling horny stories about his latest nights.

Indeed, _sweet_ wasn't the first adjective that would have come to my mind.

"He brought me flowers yesterday," she simply said, like this only gesture made him a Saint. "And he's taking me to an opera tomorrow."

An unpleasant sensation started to fill up my veins. _How sweet_.

He's taking her to an opera. Something so simple. Something I couldn't even do.

"Oh please!" I rolled my eyes. "He doesn't know anything about classical music, Madge."

She shrugged. "Maybe he wants to know."

"He just wants to _fuck you_," I almost shouted. Why was she always trying to see the best in everyone?

Her eyes narrowed at me. I expected her to shout back but when her mouth opened again, her voice was like a painful and low hissing: "I'm used to it now."

My heart beat too much faster.

It wasn't hard to read between the lines, and perhaps, that was her intention. Which was even more painful.

How could she doubt my feelings? They were too real. Too strong to even have to speak them out loud.

I loved her so much sometimes it hurts not to be able to claim it to the world. And the fact that I was here every night had nothing to do with her amazing curves that drove every guy crazy at the office. It was everything about her that brought me here every day. From the tips of her toes to her long eyelashes. From her melodious laughter to her unimaginable selflessness.

I lessened the space between us and cup her cheek with my one of my big hand, the other still digging into the sheet fabrics. "Don't go." The words spilled out of me like a pleading whisper.

I had no right to ask her that. She could go out with whoever she wanted to. She wasn't my girlfriend, after all. But it always felt like a salty wound in my chest whenever I saw her talking to another man. Sometimes, I fought the urge to lock her down somewhere, so men would have stopped prowling around her like greedy flies. So she would have been mine forever. It was unbearable to think of her with someone other than me.

"Why not?" Her voice turned squeaky. For some reason, she was on the edge of crying. My heart ached in my chest. "Why don't you want me?" Her eyes were deeply pouring in mine.

Simple question, almost innocent. But I could see something else was behind it. I had this sick impression we weren't talking about Odair anymore.

"Tell me," she pressed me gently, her hand still clutching the white blanket against her chest.

I gulped hard and slid my hand from her cheek. I stared at this beauteous creature in front of me and at the sight of the tears forming in her eyes, a usual thought slipped in my brain. _You don't deserve her._

She was a dazzling twenty-four years old woman that deserved something much better than hiding in her apartment. She wanted to settle down and have a family; I could see that in her eyes.

And I wasn't the one who could give her that. Staying with me was a mistake. A mistake she was well aware of. Staying with me was saying no to her big suburb house with a loving husband and smiling children. The funny thing was that I always saw myself in this painting. With Madge by my side and a small black-haired and blue-eyed boy in my arms.

That's what she was meant to be. To be happy. Not just a few hours a day.

However, I just couldn't let her go. She was my rock. I couldn't imagine my life without her smile and soft caresses. I couldn't imagine my days without our secret rendezvous. And maybe it was disgustingly selfish of me, but I always felt a great, sick satisfaction whenever she broke up with someone. She loved me. Me and no one else.

"Gale. Say it." I was suddenly dying to get up and wet my throat with the bottle of wine we had left on the kitchen counter. "Just say it."

She knew it. Those words I didn't even felt the need to say out loud. She knew them already. I told them in every look and cuddle we shared.

"Madge…"

_You don't deserve her._

No I didn't. And I would never have.

I couldn't say them. Not while I was leaving her alone. Again.

It wasn't fair of me. If she wanted to date Odair, I had to let her. And wish hard she wouldn't fall in love with him. Because that would have killed me.

"I should go…It-It's getting late…" I said, rising up from the bed. I didn't look at her. I _couldn't_ look at her. I knew that what I would have found would break my heart. "Goodnight, Madge."

She didn't answer. I heard her moving back in the blanket as I exited quickly from her bedroom so I wouldn't hear the sobs I knew would be there anytime.

I walked out of her apartment and locked the door behind me. As I headed to home, something pricked my heart as always, when I thought about her sleeping alone every night alone in this big bed.

Madge knew about Katniss before we started dating. She knew that no matter how much I loved her, I would never completely be hers. That I would always had to go back to my wife. And I knew that was hurting her, even though she had never mentioned it.

Sometimes, I believed she was made for me. Every tiny piece of her soul drove me crazy. Happy. I always felt lightheaded in her arms. It was easy to dream about building a family with her. But that's all I could do. Dreaming.

Because I already had a family waiting for me.

Sometimes, I really considered leaving everything for her. But that was impossible. I had a debt to pay. Katniss needed me.

"Why do you always have so much work to do?" she asked as I slithered in our bedroom.

She was sitting on our bed, with small book covering slightly her swollen belly. The dim light from the lamp on the small table drew black shadows under her frown. I shrugged and peeled my shirt and pants off, for the second time of the day.

I always avoided meeting her grey eyes. I had this feeling that they could see Madge's lips on me.

"I thought this was the reason you had an assistant," she went on while turning a page. "To make less work."

I managed to gulp the sticky lump that formed in my throat. Katniss and Madge had never met, but it was way too unpleasant to hear her talking even indirectly about my 'assistant'. "I'll try to be home sooner."

She made a sound between approval and uncertainty, but didn't push it any farther.

The truth was that she seemed more interested in whatever she was reading than in my lateness. This was just a wife/husband conversation wives and husbands should have. There weren't any real depths in it. She maybe felt the need to sound like a real spouse. To act like _this_ was the life we both wanted. And that was true, for a moment at least. I had been in love with her during practically all my teenage years. Or so I thought.

And maybe I would still have been if she didn't have this glimpse of disgust she couldn't control whenever looking at me.

As I slipped in the bed and closed my eyes, I couldn't help but wishing Primrose was still alive. Wishing I wasn't responsible for her accident.

Everything would've been different.

Better.

**A/n: This story just jumped out of my mind during Math class. Go figure out why... And I know I didn't give much detail on where this is taking place, cuz I don't even know myself. **

**Also, I was thinking about making another chapter of it. Maybe in Madge's perspectives…So if you have any idea on how this could end, feel free!**

**I'm still not used to write in English, so sorry for mistakes of all sort. Writing in past tense is THE hardest thing ever! And it wasn't Beta-d. I hope you enjoyed it, really. **

**Any reviews? **


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